Circuitous
by thenakedcupcake
Summary: The Bad Wolf and her Doctor, always circling through time. A story of how they came together. Written, long ago, for a challenge at Then There's Us.


"You are_ not _going out in that."

"What, this old thing?"

"That... that... no! No, Rose!"

"Doctor-"

"Go change!"

"But its Halloween-"

"I. Said. No."

"You're not the boss of me!"

"You are bloody well not leaving _my_ TARDIS dressed like something that would make Jack Harkness blush!"

"Really? You like it?"

"That is not what I said!"

"But if Jack would blush, then-"

"Change! Now!"

"-I guess that would make a normal bloke-"

"Rose!"

"-cream his pants, yeah?"

"...!"

"I'll see you at the party, Doctor."

And then she flounced into the night. His hair made a highly alarmed expression in her wake.

* * *

The party was extravagant. White marble made every wall and arch sing with light, the gold filigree licking its way through the stone reminding him of a girl who burned. In true fashion of a masquerade, people gained freedom from their masks and dressed to please in their costumes. Alien aphrodisiacs floated about on trays carried by waiters of many colors; he sincerely hoped Rose had heeded his warning to stay away. She had looked less put out when he told her not to drink the wine than when he told her to take off her skirt.

(In retrospect, she'd have looked much less put out if he'd phrased it that way. French maid. Honestly.)

He couldn't find her. Really, it shouldn't have been this hard. Her skirt was so short he was certain the night could chill her knickers while she walked, her bodice so low and tightly laced she couldn't look down and not collide with her own breasts, her ankles high and mighty peeking out of her dark Mary Janes. He was bloody well never making her a serving girl undercover again. Already, he'd never see her the same, and if she walked through the TARDIS with a duster in hand and the promise of frilly knickers he just might die.

She should have had a crowd of men around her. Even for the sixty third century, she was scandalous. Instead, she was no where.

It hadn't occurred to him she could have been no _when_, as well.

The back of his neck prickled, hairs on alert. He knew it was her by her smell, strawberry and tea and the musk of arousal she always wore around him. He drank deep, relishing a moment where he could smell her and not be witnessed.

His tongue curled around the hard candy of her, and he knew it _wasn't_ her by the ache of time that weighed her like armor.

She was a fox in a white gossamer gown, mask ending just above her smirk and hair tumbling around her in wild and so so long waves. Her nails were painted dark, but they only added to the animalistic image of her. The very air shook with her beast.

"Hello, Doctor." Her voice was low and husky, calm. Old. Bones brittle and shaking old, time bending around her in waves old, space clearing for this shining singularity old.

"Rose," he choked, his voice hitching in the middle of the word. She smelled like grief, and the void. "When... are you?"

"Oh, it's all a bit... wibbley wobbly. I wanted to see you."

The words were clear and rang through the clutter of sound and people like the cloister bell. He stretched his fingers out to touch her, the pads sliding from her collar bone to her shoulder and down her arm, the ghost of a touch eliciting a shiver from her as he reaffirmed she was real. He nestled his thumb in the hollow of her elbow and followed the rhythm of her single pulse.

"Rose Tyler."

She nodded, the smooth white of the mask casting deep shadows over her eyes. "I used to be."

"What are you now?"

"Something... else. Different. Old."

"You don't look a day over thirty five," he teased. He had to make light to breathe through the reek of the void around them. It stifled.

She laughed, soft and reserved. "Neither do you, old man. Isn't it past your bed time?"

He slid from the crook of her arm to her palm. The skin was soft and supple, so warm in the harsh cold light of the dance. She brushed her thumb over the cuff of his tuxedo, tugging it wistfully. Their fingers linked.

"How old _are_ you, Rose?" He tried, but he couldn't taste it in the air around her.

Her voice was thick, harmonizing with the multiverse around her. She blatantly ignored his question. "Seven thousand years ago, there was dancing for Samhain in Ireland. Gods rose together like the swell of waves, they crashed on the shores of the people below them. That's Hallowe'en, you know. A giant party for the harvest and costumes to fool the spirits of the dead. I saw all of it. The harvest and the fertility danced and Morrigan and Dagda."

"You sound like-" _a wolf in the forest_. He stopped himself just short of calling her Goddess. He was not a believer, anyway.

She did not stop her story. While she spoke, she took his other hand, and tugged him into a slow waltz, hip to hip and breath to breath. "Morrigan was not a warrior but a goddess of war, see. Soldiers were drawn to her, great men and she would tell them how they would die. She saw the end of all things, and they couldn't resist her allure. Valiantly, she wove a tapestry of the storm to come."

Step, step, step. Turn, bow. Step, step, step. Their bodies moved together with such familiarity his hearts ached. This future Rose was something very different to him than his current companion. His mouth was a thin line, and he let her continue to speak.

"Everything dies, Doctor. You need to know."

"You're not Morrigan, Rose. I am not a warrior for you to tell of death."

"Aren't you?" she asked, tilting her head to the side. Step, step, step. "I met her, you know. She was so lovely, this long black hair and eyes that looked like empty space. For all the men around her, she was lonely. I stayed only a week, and I didn't envy her the life of a prophet."

"Goddesses aren't real." His words held the bitterness of a lie they could both taste.

"She was not a goddess when she died, no. But she _was_ incredible."

"How did you meet her, Rose?"

She was silent, resting her golden head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, tasting for just a moment a breath of leather.

"War and death and blood surrounded her life, Rose. I can't imagine it was me that took you to meet her."

"No," she agreed. "I wanted to meet someone else... like me. So, I took myself."

He took a hand and tangled it in her hair, his other going around her waist as they went from waltzing to simply swaying amidst hundreds of people who took no notice of them.

"She looked like Romana. Before she died, I mean."

He stilled completely, tugging her hair gently so she would raise her eyes and look at him. Unmoving, they stared, until finally he spoke.

"Why have you come?"

"I wanted to see you."

"And you know all that ever was, do you? The Bad Wolf knows of Romana and Arcadia? The Time Vortex sees her warrior and comes to tell me how I'll die." He was suddenly so angry, thin filaments of rage lacing through his words. The universe claimed his best mate as a prophet of death, as if it had a right. He didn't know when she was from, and he didn't care. He would be angry for himself, and for the Rose of his time that had gotten herself lost in this masquerade he thought she would love. A Halloween party like no other, sixty third century, don't drink the wine, he'd said.

She laughed, put her hands at his waist and tugged him into movement again. Her head returned to his shoulder, and she stroked her hands up and down the subtle bumps of his spine. Despite himself, the motion diffused his anger. "No, you daft man. The second time we opened the doors between our minds, you showed me your past. You didn't mean to, really... it was just a door you didn't close quickly enough. I saw Romana. She was lovely, so much love for you. You for her. Two beautiful Time Lords hurtling through space at the whim of the council, creating mayhem and being rebels. You were so wild, even then."

He said nothing for several long seconds, stilled by the gravity of her words. Instead of reflecting on the past with her, he chose the future: "What happened the _first_ time we shared a telepathic link?"

"We made love."

He pressed a kiss to her temple while they swayed, bought himself a few precious seconds to process her words. She felt so much like his companion. Thinner, maybe, but she was made of the same flesh that was Rose. She still smelled like ripe, red strawberries and the tea she made them both as she stumbled blearily around the TARDIS soon after waking. Her hair still caught around the tips of his fingers, made gently rough from so many uses of peroxide. Her cheeks flushed in the same angled pattern when she was pressed against him, and her hand fit his like there were no other hands in the world.

She was a flower pressed into a great book and left to be preserved by time. He would bear witness.

"You're going to lose me, Doctor."

"Everything dies, Rose," he said grimly, echoing her.

"Yes. But not for us. Death is not the chasm that divides us. I can't... " she took in a shuddering breath, and he realized she was crying. Hot tears soaked into his lapel, and he held her. "I can't watch your hearts break again. You have to know, Doctor. The Void is nothing. I'll find you, I swear. Don't wonder for centuries if leaving us behind was right. Really, its okay. It'll be a fantastic life. Brilliant. _Molto bene_, the stuff of-"

He kissed her. It was lingering and desperate, a boundary he had never let himself cross with her. There had been Cassandra, but then she had tasted like another being. Here, even with the fire of the vortex swirling in her blood and an age likely greater than his own weighing on her, she tasted so purely of _Rose_.

She smiled into his mouth, savoring, lips separating from his one aching millimeter at a time. She had told him. It was time for her to go.

"Do me a favor, Doctor? "

"Anything, Rose."

"Keep the bow tie. An' I promise, it'll be okay."

A tap on his shoulder, and as quickly as his head turned to look at the newcomer, she was gone, faded out like she faded in. The very air around him felt her loss.

The little minx of a maid stood behind him, having finally found him, cheerfully grinning around a slice of strawberry.

"Want some?" she offered.

He did.

* * *

The Doctor stood frozen in front of Rose's room. The door was open, a gaping maw into the unknown. Her light was off, and her costumed body was illuminated only by the yellow organic glow from the hallway. He looked at the girl and saw only the immortal while she beckoned him inside.

Their love was clumsy. He bumped her nose when his mouth descended onto hers, and they filled the room with slick, wet sounds. She shoved his suit jacket off his shoulders while his fingers fumbled at her corset lacings, loosening her bodice enough he could cup the top of her breast and drag his teeth across the full flesh. She gasped and whispered the only name he had given her.

Button after agonizing button was undone. She leaned in and dragged her tongue across his sternum, marveling in the texture of the light hair and the pulse on both sides of her tongue.

"Rose, _oh_," he whispered to the space above her hair. She bit his nipple. "Do you, _ah_, trust me?"

She nodded and cupped him through his trousers. He hissed. He was thick, achingly hard. "Yes," she said simply, with such conviction it set his blood on fire.

They tumbled down to the floor together. He awkwardly pulled his trousers over his Chucks while she unlaced them, his free hand reaching forward to pull her knickers free of her body. They both forgot about his socks.

He spread her legs and shoved his way inside of her, shivering as she mewled under him, clenching every inch. The carpet bit deliciously into his knees, the silly maid's skirt neither had managed to remove rustling under the crushing power of his hips. She knew she would ache when she made them their tea in the morning.

She bit his shoulder, scraping the skin and drawing blood. He gasped and sucked her earlobe, whispering music she couldn't understand into her ear.

"Rose... _Rose_, fuck, I need..."

"Take," she bit out. "Anything."

"Roserose_rose_." Her name was a litany that fell from his lips. He took one of her hands and guided her fingers to her clit, thrusting harder as she began to stroke herself in earnest. He looked into her eyes and saw the Wolf, and the ancient Rose from the masquerade, and the nineteen year old whose world opened when he told her so cheerfully it travelled through space.

"I want to show you who I am," he said. He brought his fingertips to her temple, oh so gently, and she murmured yes. Permission. He entered, and their two minds violently collided in a kaleidoscope of age and youth and the yellowed pages of history.

She said his name, his _name_, and he said hers.

She loved him, the words taking Gallifreyan shape as they swirled in his mind. He would never say the words. But she saw, _oh_ how she saw.

* * *

When the Other set the entirety of the Dalek race on fire, just as she had, he knew.

The greatest adventure.

* * *

He and Rose fell together in a desperate tumble of agony the first night in Pete's world, wild angry fucking marking the transition from Time Lord to human. She cried when she came, and he shuddered into her, arms wrapped wholly around her as sweat made them sticky and glistening. He whispered soft nothings in Gallifreyan, rocking them back and forth on the bed while he went soft inside her.

He taught her his language as she asked for it. Love, first, was whispered into her thigh as they curled together six months after the walls between worlds closed. Time and Relative Dimension in Space had taken longer to translate.

Five years after Bad Wolf Bay, they were married. She wore pink and yellow chucks, and he wore pants under his expensive trousers with tiny martians printed on them. They shared a glass for Donna, and she called him Space Man.

They had chips, and Rose marvelled at the potato's ability to be amazing in every universe.

It would be ten years before he could muster the courage to confess he knew they would be left behind. That an immortal woman had asked for a fantastic life, and he could never deny her anything. Ten years, and he shared his mind with her. She stumbled forward, clumsily navigating a thousand years of history. She met Romana, and Susan. She laughed with Sarah Jane, and loved her. She looked into the Vortex through his eyes, and this time, she fled.

He worked long hours at Torchwood with her. They did field missions, classified and played with artifacts, put off paperwork, and had sex in the copier room. They were caught enough times Pete disabled security cameras on specific floors.

They had four children with wildly expressive hair. The Doctor was insufferable at Thanksgiving, but come Christmas he was hot cocoa on the duvet, watching Saturday morning cartoons with a carefully (and still clumsily) wrapped present held out to her. The kids wouldn't be up for hours, and they did unspeakable things in front of the tree.

Thirty seven toasters set on fire. Not counting the numbers once their eldest daughter learned to use the sonic.

When he died, she held his body and let the Vortex come alive in her blood. She knelt at his tombstone, her fingertips deep in the wet earth, and kissed her lips to the cold granite.

"I love you," she whispered. She shifted the multiverse around her, and returned to her first home.

It would never again be her only home.

* * *

He stood perched against the TARDIS outside the country home of Amy and Rory. It stood tall and proud, two stories of old and chipping white paint covered in ivy. The sky was violently streaked with red, an open handed fist that had left a red hand print across the earth just in time for sunset. He tugged at his bowtie with agitation; he was simply rubbish at reunions.

He hadn't been back to Earth for a long, long time. For them, it was five and a half years.

They named their daughter Adelaide. It was her first time Trick or Treating.

* * *

The small girl squealed as she was swung merrily between the Doctor and Amy. Her ginger hair was set on fire in the setting sun, and she chattered happily at them about school and the constellations she was learning in a thick Scottish accent. Rory followed with a mighty Jack 'O Lantern plastic bucket of candy ("I'll take those jellybabies, _thankyouverymuch_," the Doctor had quipped) and caught himself thinking of the Time Lord as family, even if he only visited every half decade. His daughter certainly seemed to think so, the way she'd taken to the mad man with the blue box. Rory would have to have The Talk with her. No You Can't Travel With Him, He's Insane, No Daughter of Mine Will Be Seduced By His Definitely Not Pretty Face. Can't have her five year old brain seeing magic and stars, certainly not before her A levels, at least. Maybe middle age. Actually, Rory was fairly certain she could never become enamored with the Doctor and he would die a happy man.

Adelaide dropped her hands from her mother and the Doctor and suddenly tore off, sprinting ahead a block to join a group of costumed children and their parents at a massive Victorian home. Thick trees overshadowed the lane; the doorstep was loudly abustle with the chatter of sugar loaded small minds, and the Doctor found himself at once envious and completely tired.

Typically, Halloween was a favorite of his. But tonight, he felt the weight of the universe in his bones. It was all things coming to dust, it was a solstice, a long silence, a breath inhaled and never let go. Something heady and nebulous, from a past life.

When they caught up to Adelaide, the woman who opened the door held a bucket filled to the brim with a rainbow assortment of jelly babies out to Amy, who delighted in passing hearty dollops of the candy around. She wore a white fox mask with a gossamer gown, and a wide smile he knew from a dark London street and a blue leather jacket. She walked down the porch steps to stand before him, and he knew he had lied to her, long ago. He believed.

Rose held a single, sticky, banana jelly baby out to him.

"Happy Halloween," she said thickly, eyes shining. Cheekily, she straightened his bow tie and looked at him seriously. "Did I mention I also travel in time?"


End file.
